


living with the living

by Addison R (beyond_belief)



Category: Wizards of Waverly Place
Genre: Angst, F/M, First Time, Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-19
Updated: 2009-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-04 16:24:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beyond_belief/pseuds/Addison%20R
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where their parents disappear, and then there is angst. For a while.</p>
            </blockquote>





	living with the living

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blackwayfarers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackwayfarers/gifts).



When Alex Russo is eighteen, she dials her brother's number at college with shaking hands, and tells him that their parents are missing.

"What do you mean, missing?" Justin demands, as Alex glares at her phone like she can strangle him through it. "Did you, like, make them disappear as part of some nefarious plan? Yet another Alex Russo scheme gone wrong? Maybe they just went somewhere and didn't leave a note."

"They always leave a note! I came home from my morning class and no one was here! Except customers! Waiting for sandwiches, Justin!" Angrily, she spreads mayonnaise on a wheat bun, then adds ham, cheese, tomatoes, pickles and shredded lettuce during the long pause. Waiting for Justin to say something, anything. Waiting for Justin to tell her that yeah, he knows where their parents are, that they haven't just _disappeared_.

He doesn't do any of that. Alex can hear him breathing on the other end of the line, and then she says, "I have work to do," and hangs up.

Justin's there an hour later, right after Max gets home, and for twenty minutes during which Alex thinks she might lose her mind, they keep making sandwiches and serving them. Until Justin says, "Fuck this," and makes a _Closed due to family emergency_ sign for the front door. He slaps it up, then says, "Loft, now," and they all go.

*

Justin finds Alex working the sub shop, a mask of angry indifference covering up what he knows is fear. He wants to grab her and pull her close, suddenly sorry for not coming home for weeks and now only coming because something is wrong, but it's too busy. He throws on an apron and listens to the clock tick as he makes sandwich after sandwich with an uncharacteristically silent Max at his elbow, until he knows they are all going to explode if they don't talk about this. He makes a sign and tapes it to the door, pushes all the customers out with coupons for free side items, and hauls his sister and brother upstairs.

"They were just _gone_!" Alex shouts once the door is shut.

Max looks between them both and sinks down onto a chair, his face pale. Justin takes a deep breath and physically pushes his sister onto the couch, linking their hands together, struggling for the right thing to say. Finally he settles on, "I don't know any more than you do, Alex," and it feels like taking the easy way out.

"How could they disappear?" Max asks. "What would someone want with them? They only - make sandwiches."

"It's because we're wizards," Alex replies, her voice full of bitterness, turning on the couch away from Justin even though he doesn't let go of her hand.

"You don't know that, Alex," he says, trying to stay calm.

*

She tries to get away from Justin but it doesn't work; he won't let go of her hand, just keeps their fingers tightly wound together. Alex doesn't want to think about the summer before he'd left for college out of state, how she'd spent all of it in a constant heat wave of being aware of _Justin_, for what had felt like the first time in her life. It had been weird and confusing, and had only been made stranger by the way that Justin had looked at her. Like he'd felt it, too.

She doesn't want to go back to that. Not now. Not when Justin is only here because their parents have disappeared. And he's trying to tell her that she can't assume it's because they're wizards, which is a bunch of bullshit. "Why else?" she snaps at him. "Why else, Justin?"

"I don't know," he says quietly.

"What do we do?" Max says then. "Go out and look for them? Keep the shop open? What?"

"I don't know!" Justin shouts, letting go of her hand so he can make an angry gesture.

_Good_, Alex thinks, _get angry_. She wants him to be mad. She's seen Justin flustered, confused, disappointed, but she's never seen him really angry. Even when Juliet had broken up with him so she could date another vampire, he'd just been resigned.

It's silent and tense for several minutes, then Justin says, "Maybe we should call the police."

Max wraps his arms around his knees. "Don't you have to wait like, twenty-four hours?"

"Not in New York," Alex murmurs, suddenly tired, the last of her adrenaline rush fading out. She leans against Justin and he slides his arm around her shoulders, hugging her tight. She has to push hard against the urge to cry.

"We should figure out if it's something magical first," he says after another long silence. "Before we go to the police. I could try the crystal ball. Some spells. But I need you guys to help. I haven't done anything but really basic magic in - in months."

*

Nothing works.

All three of them cast spells long into the night. They leave magical messages for everyone they can think of. And then there is nothing to do but wait. It's past midnight when Max falls asleep on the sofa, shadows under his eyes. Justin snags the blanket from one of the chairs and lays it over him. Then he looks at Alex, slumped on the other chair.

"I'm sorry," he says, because he doesn't know what else to say. It's horrible, this helpless feeling. "I'm sorry I'm not good enough to figure this out."

"Justin, no," she replies. Her voice is shaky. "Come on. You're tired, I can see it in your face." She sits up enough so there's room on the chair for both of them, and pulls him down next to her. "C'mon," she whispers again.

He's too tired to resist. Sleep deprivation makes him sloppy. Makes him want things like Alex's warm touch, things he'd sworn he wasn't going to let himself want again. He leans against the back of the chair and she moves into his arms, settling against him. "Maybe someone will have an answer in the morning," he murmurs into her hair. It's short again, barely to her chin, and there are deep red streaks. He wonders what else he's missed in the last few months.

"Yeah." It's just a sigh, warm breath against his neck. "Can we sleep right here like this?"

"Sure."

*

Alex wakes up when the sun hits the windows, her whole body stiff from sleeping slumped on top of Justin in a chair. She gets up slowly, carefully. He's snoring slightly, and his hands twitch when she's out of reach, but he doesn't wake up. Max is missing from the couch, and Alex guesses he's gone back to his own room.

She goes to check, to be sure, needing to know that he hasn't disappeared as well, and finds him burrowed underneath the blankets of his bed. Alex hovers in the doorway for a few seconds, unsure if she should wake him up and tell him he should go to school, or if she can call him in sick. She's still standing there when Justin comes up behind her and touches her shoulder. "Do you think Max should go to school today?" she asks.

"Look at you, all concerned with attendance," he teases, then muffles a yawn with his hand. "I think Mom and Dad would be cool with him staying home. Besides, we might need his powers."

In the morning light, something occurs to her. "Do you think something's gone wrong with the wizard test and stuff?" Stranger things have happened to them.

"I really don't know," he says softly, and she knows they're both remembering the Caribbean. "Come on, what about being a wizard has ever made sense," he tries to joke. But it falls flat between them and Alex doesn't know how to reply.

She pushes away from the doorframe. It might feel weird, but she's glad that he's here. "I'm, um, going to make some breakfast. You want anything?"

"Whatever you make." He's all rumpled and sleepy and she's willing to bet he's got as many aches and pains as she does. "Thanks."

Justin catches her as she slides past, and they hug. "I'm glad you're here," Alex whispers in his ear, holding tight to the strength of his shoulders, being held by the span of his hands around her waist.

"We'll figure it out," he promises.

*

Alex looks tired and pale, and as she starts to walk away from Max's room, Justin reaches out for her. He wraps her up in his arms and is grateful when she hugs back. She murmurs that she's glad he's here. Justin holds her a little tighter for a second, promising that they'll figure it out.

Even though he doesn't have a clue what's going on.

She wanders off to the kitchen. He goes to his room and just stands there for a few minutes. It looks the same as it always has - maybe a little cleaner than the days when he was living in it. He fights the urge to fall down onto the bed and sleep another few hours. Sometime today, he might need to go through the portal to the magical world, and it's been long enough that he needs to brush up with the spellbook for a while first.

So he showers fast and throws on some clothes still in his dresser, and goes to see if Alex needs help. Max is up, sitting at the counter skimming the paper and drinking a glass of orange juice. There's one waiting for Justin, too, and coffee brewing. "You drink coffee now?" he asks Alex.

"Black as the night," she replies. "Pancakes or pancakes?"

"Anything, Alex." He slides into a chair.

She shrugs. "They were in the freezer." Then she passes the syrup from the refrigerator as the microwave dings and, after the syrup, the plate of pancakes. All three of them eat from it without talking, knives and forks clinking until it's gone.

Justin licks the sticky syrup from his fingertips but barely tastes it, sees Alex lick it from the corner of her mouth. "So now what?" she asks.

"Yeah, now what?" Max echoes, slowly stirring spoonful after spoonful of sugar into the cup of coffee he's just poured for himself. Most of the time, Justin forgets that his little brother is growing up. But he's nearly seventeen, almost to the final stretch before taking the test. Justin remembers how hard he'd studied.

It seems like forever ago now.

"I guess we should see if anyone's gotten our messages," he says, and they all go down to the Lair.

There's not a single response. Justin is dumbfounded. "I don't understand it. Even Kelso?"

"He should have at least sent something." Alex clutches her mug of coffee.

"There's nothing from anyone?" Max asks, leaning over the magic mailbox. "Look again."

"There's nothing," Justin whispers. Then he grabs the nearest wand he can see and aims it at the portal. "_These are things that Wizards do; open, Portal, let us through_."

There's nothing. Not a flash, not even a faint glow.

He tries again. Alex tries. Max tries.

Nothing.

"What does it mean?" Max shouts, banging into a table and sending books flying.

Justin finds Alex's hand without even realizing what he's doing. "I guess it doesn't mean anything," he says dully. "I guess we either call the police and tell a fuckload of lies, or we wait, and try until something works."

Max makes a frustrated noise. Justin knows the feeling. "I'm going outside," Max says, stomping towards the stairs. "I'll be back later."

"Take your -" Justin starts, but Max is already gone.

*

Max storms out, and Alex keeps holding on to Justin's hand. They stare at each other for a few minutes. She wants desperately to ask what they're supposed to do now, but she's starting to understand that he doesn't know any more than she does, and she doesn't want to hear him say he doesn't know. So she reaches up with her free hand to touch his face, hesitantly. "Sorry you had to come back to this."

"Not your fault." Justin's shaking his head.

Alex doesn't know what to do. "Justin -"

"Not your fault, Alex," he repeats. "And yeah, there is _so_ much irony in that statement."

She grins despite herself. "Are you gonna write me a note so I don't flunk out of my stupid sculpture class?"

"You? What about me?"

"Do you need to go back?" she asks, realizing she doesn't want him to. Yeah, there'd been about three minutes after she'd discovered Jerry and Theresa were gone where she hadn't wanted to call him, but now that he's standing in front of her, Alex is seeing how much she's missed him.

His fingers tighten warmly on hers. "I'll send a couple emails. I should be okay for a few days, and I don't have classes on Fridays anyway."

Alex makes a mock-surprised face and can't resist needling him a little bit. "What do you mean, you're not taking classes five days a week? What happened to the kid who would have gone to school twenty-four hours a day if he could, huh?"

"Ugh, bio lab happened," he groans, letting go of her hand to reach up and rub at his face.

"You don't do much magic there, do you?" she asks, although she's already guessed the answer.

"Is it that obvious?"

She shrugs. "Kinda."

If she's being honest, she doesn't do much outside of home, either. Sometimes getting on the subway to go to class feels like leaving magic behind. "I get it, Justin," she says, before he can try to explain; it's Justin, of course he would want to explain. She takes her coffee mug from the table. "I don't want to be in here any more."

"Me neither," he murmurs.

But something in her still pulls, still wants to be close to him, and in the loft they turn the television on to find a morning talk show and curl up on the couch together. Alex drags his arms around her waist, beyond caring that it's weird.

*

Justin presses his face into Alex's hair as Regis talks about the latest American Idol scandal. She melts back against him, pulling his arms tighter. "Little Miss Needy," he whispers in her ear, hoping she won't take it the wrong way.

"Shut up," she grumbles. She digs her fingers into his arm for a second, enough for it to be painful. "I can still hurt you."

He doesn't doubt that she could. "Oh, the days when you only cared about making my life a living hell." She jabs him in the stomach with the pointy bit of her elbow. "_Ow_, that hurt."

"Be quiet, I'm trying to watch Regis."

Justin presses his face against her neck for the sole purpose, he tells himself, of being an asshole and distracting her. Instead of pinching him, she whimpers and moves against him, and he can't hold back his gasp. They both freeze.

"Alex, what-"

She turns over in his arms. "Shut up, Justin, just - shut up," she breathes. "And kiss me. Don't talk. Kiss me."

He does.

It's a lining up of open mouths, no tongue, not even that dirty of a kiss, but. The touch jolts through him unlike any kiss he's ever been a part of before; like molten gold the feeling spreads, lighting up every muscle and crook of bone in his body. It's over sooner than Justin would have liked, because Alex's whole body hitches when her breath does, and the movement breaks them apart.

"I'm sorry," he says, even though he's not sure what exactly he's sorry about. Everything, maybe.

Alex scoffs. She doesn't move away from him. "Sorry for what?"

Justin lets his eyes drop to her mouth. Sometimes she's so inscrutable that it's hard for him to judge how she wants him to play things. Summer could have been his imagination, after all. "For not doing this before now," he answers, and kisses her again.

*

_Don't make me spell it out for you_, she thinks, but Justin's gaze flicks to her lips and she hopes he gets it. It feels like forever rolls through the room, careening into the walls, before he says, "For not doing this before now." Then he's kissing her again, for real this time. It's wet and messy and exactly the kind of kiss Alex likes, trading off control, back and forth, taking and being taken. Justin's mouth is warm and she can tell that he's trying not to demand too much.

It's way more of a turn on than it should be.

Downstairs, a door slams and they break apart again. Alex feels like her heart is beating out of control as she rolls off the couch and to her feet, making it to the nearby chair before Max comes in. She pretends like she's really into whoever this musical guest is on _Regis &amp; Kelly_, and then she remembers she doesn't like country music all that much. Justin is asking Max what the weather is like outside. Alex rolls her eyes.

"Kinda weird," Max answers, summoning a bottle of water from the fridge. It bumps into the wall, but it gets to him. "Feels like that goofy stillness there always is before a storm. Or after a storm. Except it's supposed to be nice all week."

"If by nice, you mean ass-freezing cold," she jumps in. They both stare at her. "What? I was listening. For once."

"I don't get it," Max says to Justin, ignoring her contribution. Alex turns her attention back to the television, pulling the blanket from the back of the chair up around her head. She feels tired and alive all at the same time and she wants to close her eyes and think about Justin's hands, but she also wants to close her eyes and cry at how empty the house feels without her parents.

Only a few minutes pass before she can't stand it and announces, "I'm going to my room," and escapes to take a shower.

*

Max keeps talking as Justin pretends he's not watching Alex walk from the room. He manages to say, "No, I don't know," at the appropriate time and Max doesn't notice he's stopped paying attention to the conversation. "Should we open the shop today?" he asks, interrupting what his brother is saying about his jogging route.

"No." Max looks at him like he's crazy for suggesting that they work if there's a reason not to, even though Justin is fairly certain that Max will be the one taking over the family business in a few years. And it's not like Justin wants to spend all day making sandwiches and refilling salt shakers and trying to remember his dad's recipe for potato salad, but he'd figured he should at least bring it up.

He stands. "I'm going to try the Portal again."

In the Lair, there's a message from Kelso. _No idea. Maybe it's a test! Maybe they ran away to Aruba!_ Justin flings the scroll away in disgust. "Ran away to Aruba," he mutters. "In the middle of lunch."

Max holds up his hands, shrugs and makes a face all at once.

"I know, I know. Stranger things have happened in this family." Saying it out loud seems to lighten the mood somewhat. "You know," he tells Max, "just because I called you in sick to school today doesn't mean you get to slack off and not do whatever homework you didn't do last night."

"Sure it does!"

Justin rolls his eyes, but doesn't push it. The last thing he wants is for Max or Alex to accuse him of acting like a grown-up while their parents are gone.

"You don't have to hang out with me, you know," Max says, reaching for one of the comic books he keeps stashed around the Lair. He kicks his feet up on the table. "I can entertain myself."

It's a total brush-off. Justin's been gone for months and his little brother still doesn't want to hang out with him. He coughs, feeling awkward. "I gotta go email my professors anyway."

Max waves, not looking up from his comic. Justin goes back to the loft and digs his laptop from the backpack he'd brought home and abandoned by the door the minute he had walked in. He emails the professors he needs to, and has just opened his econ syllabus to check how behind he'll be for missing two classes, when Alex comes out of her room. Her hair is wet but combed, and he can see a few drops of water still running down her jaw.

She wipes them away when they reach her chin. "Hey."

"Hey."

"Whatcha doin'?"

"Homework," he groans, navigating through folders, trying to find the file for his English paper. "Don't you have any?"

"Uh, I'm only taking art classes at the community college?" Alex waves her hands in the air in her classic 'my brother is stupid' way. It's less annoying than he used to find it. And it figures that she'd still be trying to find ways to get out of homework, but if she watches television all day, he'll never get his own papers done.

"C'mon, come chill on the couch with me. With your drawings or whatever."

*

Sometimes, Justin is dumb about stuff, seriously. She wipes more water off her neck. Should have dried her hair better, but it's not like she's planning to leave the house today. He's still looking at her like she's crazy, though. "I guess I could do my sketches for my lame sculpture class," she grumbles, and goes to get her sketchbook and pencils from her room.

He's moved over on the couch when she returns, so she sits down cross-legged in the warm spot he'd left and adjusts her cutoff yoga pants over her knees before pulling her sketchbook into her lap. It's quiet for a while as she tries to decide how to best stretch out the angles for her warped toaster sculpture, and then there are just the soft pencil noises as she sketches out the cartoon tongue that will replace the normal lever.

Justin bends down to dig for something in his backpack, and she reaches out without even thinking about it and threads her fingers through his hair. It's soft against her skin, no product in it to keep it a certain way. "You let it grow," she murmurs absently, drawing a pair of oversized lips around the tongue.

"Yeah." He straightens up, holding a battered copy of Hemingway's complete works, full of sticky notes. Then he leans over her shoulder a little. "Is that a toaster?"

"Yep."

Justin keeps leaning over, watching her draw, and it's really distracting. He's not wearing the same cologne that he'd been slapping on for years, and instead of smelling like ginger and cedarwood and whatever else it is, he smells like clean soap and the dryer sheets Alex knows their mom had tucked in his dresser when he'd left for college. It's also more than a little awkward because she has no idea if he's going to want to talk about the kissing. Or if he's going to want to kiss more.

She shouldn't want to keep the kissing going, but she does. "Is this why you transferred out of state?" she asks suddenly.

"What?" He draws back a little, and when she glances at him, he looks confused.

"Because you wanted to kiss me."

"I wanted to go to a school with a decent engineering program," Justin replies, but he says it haltingly, in the way that Alex knows means he's just making it up as he speaks.

"No, it makes sense now!"

"Alex-"

"Is the guilt eating you up inside?" she teases, poking him in the side.

Justin slides his hand around the back of her neck. His palm is warm, and his fingers slip through her still-damp hair. "Not as much as it should be," he breathes, and Alex shoves her sketchbook and pencils on the floor so she can reach for his waist, skim her hands around his hips and up over his back. She expects at least a flash of weirdness when he pulls her into his lap, but there's nothing but the desire to be right where she is, opening her mouth under his.

They stay that way for a long time, until Alex hears Max banging his way through the sub shop, and she tries to go back to her sketches but she can't concentrate. So she announces she's going to make herself some lunch, and tries to ignore the way Justin's hand brushes over her thigh accidentally on purpose when she gets up from the couch.

*

Later, Alex finds him in the Lair, sitting motionless on the sofa. "Justin?"

"Hey," he says, his voice rough.

Alex is going to take that to mean he hadn't had any luck this time either. "You okay?" she asks instead. Justin doesn't answer. He holds out his hands instead and Alex goes to him without a second thought. "We sure spent a lot of time sitting around," she says, aiming for flippant and conversational but somehow ending up with tired, crumbling edges instead. "Also eating."

Justin tugs her down onto his lap. "What is there to do but wait?"

"The Portal still won't open?"

"Won't do anything."

"I just don't get it," she sighs, leaning forward against him, laying her head on his shoulder. "How many weird things have happened to us over the years, you know? But this feels so different."

He walks his fingers slowly down her back as he says, "I know." Then he walks them back up again, slides them through her hair. "I like the red streaks," he murmurs, "they're sorta fierce."

"Thanks," Alex breathes. Her heart is starting to beat faster, speeding up again like it's been doing whenever she's this close to him. She's suddenly aware of how she's straddling his hips, of the heat building between her legs. Intent sparks between them like the coarse strike of a match, a flame popping in the dark.

"Alex," he murmurs against her neck, "what are we doing?"

She makes up her mind. "You're gonna touch me." His indrawn breath is sharp and loud in the otherwise quiet room, like he can't believe she's giving him permission to do this, an unasked question lingering in the sliver of space between them. "Yes," she says firmly, "I want you to."

His hands move slowly up and down her back again, like he's not sure what to do, so Alex reaches back. But when her hands touch his, instead of letting her pull his arms back around so she can put them where she wants them - her breasts, she really wants him to touch her breasts right now - Justin catches both her wrists in one hand and holds them tight there at the small of her back.

It's Alex's turn for a sharp inhalation. "Justin, what..."

The hand not holding her wrists slips around her waist, flat palm skimming over her body. He stops with his hand at her belly button, and ducks his thumb under the elastic band of her yoga pants.

It's a small move, but it's so weighted with intent that it feels like the biggest thing in the world. Alex looks up at him and he's staring at her like he can't believe she's letting him get away with this. She squirms a little against his hold, wanting to run her fingers over his face and pull him in for a kiss, but he doesn't let go. The hand on her stomach drops a few centimeters lower. Alex huffs a breath, because it's maddeningly slow, the way he's tracing the waistband of her panties back and forth and back and forth, working the edge of his thumb under the elastic a tiny bit more with every sweep. "Justin," she whines, rolling her hips, "please -"

He squeezes her wrists lightly. "You wanted me to touch you, so let me touch you how I want to."

She whines again, high in the back of her throat, feeling like her breath is rasping dry through her mouth. Justin ducks down and kisses her, wets her lips and tongue with his, and slides his thumb down where she wants it, strokes firmly over her clit while she moans into his mouth.

Alex isn't inexperienced. Were this any other guy, she'd rock her hips, press herself onto his touch, urge him back just a little further to slip inside her with two fingers, maybe three; get off on it before he fucked her so that she'd last longer while he did. But it's not any other guy. It's Justin, and he just keeps rubbing the pad of his thumb in circles over her clit while she gasps and gets wetter and wetter.

She gasps again when he nips at her bottom lip and pulls back from the kiss, whispering feverishly, "I need to see, Alex, I want to see, let me," and they're both working to push the stretchy pants and her panties down enough that he can see her without her having to get too far off his lap. It doesn't work too well. Justin tips her sideways off of him as she groans, pulls the clothes down her legs and off while she lays on her back on the couch.

He pushes her thighs apart and she lets him, digging her fingertips into the velvety cushions, feeling the flush in her face increase. Even her earlobes are tingling. She glances at his crotch, can see the outline of his cock against his sweatpants. "Not fair," she pants, "you get to look and I don't. Take your pants off."

*

All Justin can think is that he wants to taste her, and that they're going to make a mess and stain the couch, when she tells him to take his sweatpants off. "No," he says, in a voice that sounds weird to him.

Alex pouts, which should be bizarre and hilarious and all sorts of other things, because she's laying with her legs spread and he can see everything, just like he wanted to. She's so wet he can smell it. The tops of her thighs are slick. "Why not?" she asks.

"Because I can't do this here, in this room."

"Oh, I think you could," she says, and palms his cock through the material, and Justin somehow groans, chokes, and gets his aching erection out of her reach before he gives in and takes her. She pouts some more.

"I'm not going to have you for the first time on a damn couch," he manages to get out, "in a room where we can't lock the door."

Understanding sweeps across her face. "Oh."

As if to illustrate his point, there's a loud banging noise, and a flurry of shouting. Alex's eyes get huge. "That sounds like -"

"Mom and Dad!"

Justin closes his eyes and thinks about chemistry equations and anatomy lab and fetal pig dissections as fast as he can until his erection has mostly faded, and when he's opened them again, Alex is dressed. The smell of arousal is still in the air, and he sees her grab her wand and wave it away. Then she snaps her fingers, and he immediately feels cleaner. "Um, thanks."

"Yeah. We'll... with this later. Come on!"

They hurry to the loft, not touching, and spill into the room where Max is hugging their mother and their dad is making a lot of wild gestures with his arms. "Where where you?" Justin shouts at the same time Alex shouts it, and Jerry and Theresa look at them both in surprise.

"We got caught in a Time-Stop Tornado!" his dad exclaims, looking excited about it.

"Never heard of a Time-Stop Tornado," Justin starts to say, but Alex says it faster, with "and we thought you were dead or something!" at the end. Justin sits down heavily on the couch, feeling dazed.

"Oh, kids," Theresa says softly, as Max dives in for another hug. "I'm sorry we had you so worried."

"You can't get out of a Tornado until it decides to let you out," Jerry adds. "I ran out down to the corner to get some of that cheese that the lady with the cart sells, you know the one, and when I didn't come back right away your mom came out to check on me, and we both got caught in it."

Justin can see that Alex is near tears, and he understands the feeling. His head is spinning like the time he drank the punch at a dorm party, which means that any second, a headache is going to crash down like a ton of bricks on his head and then he's just going to want to throw up.

*

Alex is sure this would be hilarious if this were a movie. Doubly hilarious if it were one of Justin's silent movies. Jerry's already got the overacting down pat. But since it's her life and she's already at 110% emotional capacity, she just wants to cry.

She'd hug them, but part of her is worried she still smells like sex, and that is definitely not something she wants them knowing anything about. So she says, "We kept the sub station closed while you guys were gone. Sorry."

"It's okay, honey," her dad replies. "Justin, I'm sorry you had to come home from school."

Alex sees Justin shake his head next to her and shrug. "I'm not."

"How come we couldn't open the Portal?" Max asks suddenly.

"You can't open the Portal?" Jerry asks and so they all go to the Lair, even Theresa. Alex is really, really glad she did the cleaning spells as she slumps behind the desk. She can't sit on the sofa. It's hard enough to ignore the way her body is screaming at her to finish what she and Justin had started.

She puts her head down on her arms as Justin does the spell to open the Portal and it doesn't work. She can imagine the confused look on her dad's face well enough. Then she hears books being opened and closed and moved around on shelves, and then Jerry says, "Aha!"

"Aha what?" she asks without looking up.

"Celestial interference," Justin reads; she can tell he's reading. "It must have caused the Time-Stop Tornado, and made it impossible for the Portal to open, and..." Justin trails off and clears his throat hurriedly. Alex is glad her head is down, because her cheeks flame. But her parents must miss it, because neither one of them prompts Justin to finish his sentence.

Celestial interference must have been the reason they hadn't been able to keep their hands off each other.

She gets up and leaves the Lair.  


*

Justin stops talking before he says what he shouldn't and ten seconds later, Alex walks out of the room. "Justin," Jerry says. "Justin!"

"Yes! What?"

"Could you still get mail?"

"Yeah," Justin answers, and spends the next few minutes explaining what they'd tried. "We thought something bad had happened to you both," he tells his parents. "Alex was convinced something had gone wrong because we're wizards."

Jerry and Theresa exchange a look that Justin definitely doesn't miss. "What is it?" he asks. "Was she - not wrong?"

"Well, she was, this time," Jerry says. "But I heard from Kelbo a rumor -"

"Everything's rumors with Kelbo," Theresa interrupts.

" - a rumor that there are some wizards not happy with the mixing of wizards and mortals, that's all," Jerry finishes. "It's probably nothing. Sometimes he completely blows things out of proportion, and sometimes he's drunk - Theresa, don't give me that look!"

"You're going to scare our kids that something a lot more worse than a Time-Stop Tornado is going to happen to us, Jerry!" She gestures towards Max, who Justin had almost forgotten was in the room, and Max looks a little bit terrified.

"Whoa, whoa, we're all adults," Justin breaks in. "Or close enough," he adds, mostly to Max.

"Thanks," Max says.

"You're welcome. Dad!"

"What now?"

Justin waves his hand in the air. "Explain!"

"There's nothing to explain," Jerry says firmly. Justin opens his mouth to protest, but his father holds up his hand. "Nothing to explain, Justin."

"Yeah, right," Justin sighs. He's suddenly exhausted, tiredness seeping through his bones. Too much has happened today. "If that's all, I'll just go back to school."

He turns and goes back out to the sub station, only to see Alex sitting at the counter, half a brownie on a plate in front of her. "Hey," she says glumly, "you leaving?"

"Since Mom and Dad are back, I probably should." He reaches out and snags the rest of the dessert. "You okay?"

Alex snorts. "Half an hour ago we were going to have sex, and then our parents came home and ruined it," she mutters under her breath, just as everyone else spills through the freezer door.

Justin decides that going back to school is probably his best bet.

*

Obviously they're not going to be having any meaningful conversations about this with their parents even anywhere in the house. Alex sighs. She licks her finger, then dabs the brownie crumbs from the plate. The look on Justin's face is clear - he wants to get as far away from here as possible. "I don't blame you," she says to him.

"Justin, you should at least stay for dinner, honey," Theresa says.

"No, I should go," Justin replies, still looking at her. Alex makes a face at him, but she doesn't look away, because the last thing she wants is for either of her parents to ask if she and Justin had a fight or something.

She stays sitting at the counter as everyone else goes upstairs and eats another brownie. Justin comes back down alone, his backpack over one shoulder. "How are your teleporting skills?" he asks without preamble.

"Okay, I guess. Why, you need help getting back to Connecticut?"

"No, you're going to come to me once everyone else has gone to bed." He sets a slip of paper on the counter.

"I am?"

"And we're going to finish what we started." His voice is low, promising, and Alex's whole body throbs.

"It's not just celestial interference?" she breathes, half to him and half to herself, shock rooting her to the spot.

"I guess we'll find out." Justin leans in and kisses her hard and quick, and yeah, she still wants him. Then he vanishes.

*

Later, after she's said goodnight to her parents and brushed her teeth and has locked the door to her room, she snags the piece of paper from on top of her dreser. She fixes the address in her mind. "_Transportation, that's the biz; I want to be where Justin is._"

A flash and then she's stumbling, coughing from the smoke. Arms catch her, wrapping strong around her waist. "Ugh, I hate teleporting," she wheezes, grimacing at the way her stomach is twisting. "Gimme a second so I stop feeling like I'm gonna hurl."

Justin waits patiently, and after a minute of feeling like her stomach is trying to escape her body, Alex straightens up and smiles at him, queasiness forgotten. He smiles back. "I admit, I was kinda worried you wouldn't show," he says, raising an eyebrow.

Alex reaches up and presses her thumb to the middle of his bottom lip. "Gotta finish what we started," she says, and then they're kissing, Justin's mouth desperate on hers.

When they stop to breathe, she glances around the room. Most of it is freakishly neat and organized, and there's a pile of robot parts in one corner. Justin must catch her looking, because he says, "That pile's actually not mine. They're Mike's. My roommate. Owner of the unmade bed."

"And is Mike going to be returning to his unmade bed at all tonight?" Alex asks, raising an eyebrow.

Justin grins. "Nope. Mike's girlfriend goes to Goodwin and he spends Thursday night through Sunday at her crappy apartment in the ghetto part of town." He lets go of her long enough to reach out and do something with a mess of wires running to and from an iPod on the desk, and music starts, so Alex figures it must be some kind of engineer geek stereo.

"Hey, this is a good song," she says, surprised, tapping the beat out against his shoulder and swaying a little closer.

Justin chuckles and moves with her. His hands are firm on her hips. "What, you don't believe I listen to things that aren't heavy metal?"

"No, I don't," she says dryly, and tips her head to bring her mouth close to his. "Justin."

"Alex."

Alex opens her eyes and looks up into his, searching, realizing that the part of her that's holding back is the part of her that's still waiting for him to push her away. But his hands only shift a little on her hips, and then Alex realizes they're moving to the music in a lazy sort of way, except for how she can feel his erection low against her belly, and there's an answering throb beginning between her legs. "So we've got all night?" she whispers in his ear, reaching between them to slip her fingers under the edge of his shirt, press them to the trail of hair leading down from his belly button.

Justin's breath stutters a little. Then he grabs the bottom of her pajama top and pulls it up over her head. She feels her nipples tighten in the cooler air, and fights the urge to close her eyes as he looks at her. He looks for more than a few seconds, and she squirms. "Justin, c'mon, you've seen me naked before."

"Not like this," he says in a matter-of-fact voice. He pulls his own shirt over his head, shucks his sweatpants. Alex takes a deep breath and shimmies out of her pajama shorts; they fall in a pool of warm satin at her feet.

"I guess we both skipped underwear," Justin adds, and ducks in to kiss her, hard, as she laughs. Then he says, "Bed, now."

*

The bed is lofted high enough to fit a dresser and a mini-fridge underneath it. Justin boosts himself onto it, then helps Alex up. She climbs into his lap immediately, letting her whole body press forward towards him, and slides their lips together.

"Are you sure?" he murmurs against the corner of her mouth, sliding a hand over her bare thigh with an upwards trajectory, but he pauses before he reaches his destination, waiting for her answer.

"Shut up, yes," Alex growls, dropping an arm from around his neck. Justin sucks in a breath when she licks her palm, and another sharper breath when she wraps her hand around his dick. The smile that spreads across her face is just as sharp.

He's not sure how time both speeds up and slows down. It seems to take forever to tug her down onto the bed and push her thighs apart, but once he's got his mouth on her, curling his tongue over her clit and sliding his fingers into her, it goes way too fast. She comes before he feels like he's had his fill, musk-salt-bitter over his lips as she wails and drags her fingers through his hair.

"Justin," she whimpers as he traces his tongue over her again. "Too much."

Justin turns his head and presses a kiss to the inside of her thigh, waiting. Time slows down again as she rubs her heels on the sheets, sighs, and pulls him up by the shoulders. Her neck is damp with sweat when he nuzzles it. "Justin," she breathes again, hooking a leg around his.

"Condom?" he manages to ask. The head of his cock slides over her thigh and he swallows hard.

"I did a spell."

He shakes his head. "I'm not leaving this to magic," he says, and reaches for the wallet on his desk.

This takes forever, too, and he's afraid for a second that he's fucked it all up when he can't get the foil packet open and has to rip it with his teeth. But Alex just rubs her heel over the back of his leg and distracts him by absentmindedly touching her breasts with her fingertips. He forgets what he's doing for several seconds, watching her, but then the bitter taste of the lube reminds him, and he spits the edge of the packet from between his teeth.

"Like this?" he asks, meaning their current position, because Alex seems like she'd want to be on top, but she misunderstands.

"You don't know how to roll a condom on?"

"No, that wasn't what I meant." He demonstrates that he indeed does know how, and watches a wolfish grin pull at her mouth.

"Are you a virgin?"

"No. Are you?"

"No." She says it with a scoff.

"What I meant was, did you want to be on top?" Justin clarifies, his tongue feeling too big for his mouth, or maybe just those words. They're in his tiny dorm room in his tiny bed and the light is still on overhead. He wishes suddenly that he had candles. Then he remembers he's a wizard, and with a snap of his fingers, the harsh florescent is replaced by mellow gold.

Alex smiles again and flips them over.

*

The light changes. She smiles in approval, not only because she'd been sort of wondering if they were actually going to do this with the stark overhead light still on. Then she flips them over, a knee on either side of Justin's hips. She's still a little shaky, a little breathless, and Justin's got a tight grip on her waist, like he thinks she could just melt into nothing at any second. She might. It was good; she's not going to deny that he knew what he was doing. She tries not to think about the girls he'd practiced on.

"Ugh, wait," Justin mumbles. He lets go of her and flexes his fingers, closing his eyes for a second. There's a tiny spark in the air, like flicking a lighter that won't catch, and then he grins. "I always wanted to try this, but. You know."

She can't hold back her gasp as he skims his fingertips over her sides, the magic warm and teasing like bubbles popping along her skin, all her nerve endings snapping to attention like soldiers.

She squirms, whispers, "Please, now, you jerk," and Justin guides himself into her.

It's better than it should be, at first. Going back to sex with mortals is going to be lame. She says as much and Justin ruins the good part by laughing so hard that he totally loses his rhythm, causing Alex to lose hers. She starts to laugh, too, and then curses Justin as he takes advantage of it to turn them over again, thrusting into her and pressing his face into her neck, breath still hitching with mirth. She pulls on his hair in retaliation.

He comes first, with a shaky moan that's hot against her shoulder, but she can't be disappointed when he slides a shaking hand between them. His fingertips are still sparking with magic. Three seconds against her clit and Alex is coming harder than she ever has before.

"You just cheated at sex," she says, when she can breathe again.

Justin smirks.

*

"I should go home," Alex sighs, as the sunlight starts to curl around the edges of Justin's tightly-closed blinds. "I'm supposed to work this afternoon, and I need to go to school to prep the stuff for my toaster sculpture."

Justin squints at her. "What happened to sleeping Saturday away?"

"I would rather sleep," Alex grumbles, stretching in what Justin can only describe as a petulant manner. "But I can't take the furniture design class I want to take unless I pass the sculpture course."

"Prerequisites, thwarting college students everywhere," Justin teases. Alex gives him an unimpressed look, but cuddles up next to him anyway. "Oh, so you're not going?"

She yawns. "In a couple minutes."

This should be weird, laying here naked next to her, but Justin's pretty stuck on the idea that so much in their lives was weird to start out with. "So what now?" he asks, twirling a few strands of her hair around his index finger. The magic he'd conjured up had faded hours ago; his touch is back to being the same as ever.

Alex shrugs, knocking their shoulders together. "Last summer," she says finally, "was it just me?"

His heart lurches in his chest. "Uh."

She climbs over him to get out of the bed, dropping lightly to the floor. "I didn't have underwear, right?"

"Nope." It's almost funny. "And it wasn't just you."

"Without underwear?"

"Last summer."

Alex looks up, her eyes wide. "Oh."

Justin feels like he should say something to get her to stay, to make her drop her clothes back onto the floor, to convince her to climb back up onto the bed with him, but he doesn't know what those words would be. So he just watches her get dressed instead.

"So, you should come home more often," she says when she's done.

"Yeah?"

Alex nods, pushing her hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ears. "I bet Dad would even give you a couple shifts in the restaurant."

"Oh, shut up," he grumbles, and flings his arm out in her direction. Alex steps in, and he spreads his palm wide over her hip and tugs her towards the bed. "And here going to school out of state was supposed to be getting me out of making sandwiches on the weekends," he says.

"Nope, no luck." She grins and leans down. Justin kisses her softly. "Really, I should go," she mumbles against his mouth. He nips at her bottom lip. "Justin. I should go."

"Yeah, okay."

"Bye," she says, and the blue-white light swirls around her from toes to the top of her head, and then she's gone. Justin stares into the empty space for a long time. He feels almost like his phone never rang at all except for the indescribable feeling in his chest, a weight on him like something's sat down and refused to move.

 

He looks at where she'd been a while longer. Eventually, though, he can't stop his eyes from closing and he falls asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to K., who read this as I wrote it and assured me it wasn't completely terrible, and also mostly in character. Also, thanks to Netflix for having so many eps of WoWP available for streaming! \o/


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